The Ghosts of Christmases Past

The Ghosts of Christmases Past 

I am haunted by the ghosts of Christmases past.   The Christmases of my mother, Ruth.  Mama loved Christmas.  She wanted the most exciting experience for her two little girls.  I can remember coming down the hall on Christmas morning, rounding the corner to find half of the living room floor covered in beautiful, shiny, packages way out into the center of the room from the tree.  Two bicycles over to the side, a babydoll in a tiny rocking chair, stockings bulging on the mantle.  Of course our house was a small house, a typical “30s bungalow.”  But by today’s standards, it was very small, so it didn’t take a lot to “cover half the living room floor.”  Still, to a child’s wide open eyes, it was   splendorous! 
(Did I just make up a new word?  I tend to do that.)

Memories of Christmases Past

We were not wealthy.  We were ordinary, average.  But my mother insisted we have a “big” Christmas.  It didn’t matter about the money, how much a present had cost.  It was about having many, many, many beautiful packages to open.  This was before the days of the ubiquitous bags or sacs used today to wrap gifts.  Bags - you can just throw something in, stuff in a piece of tissue paper, stick on a pre-made bow, and you are through.  Back in the day, everything had to be put in a box, then wrapped with beautiful paper being sure to fold under the ends properly to make a neat package, then bringing around twice (once in each direction) a piece of shiny ribbon, and finally tying the finest bow you could muster!  It took time, and effort, some slight talent, but mostly it took    . . .   love!  

This practice endured until we were grown.  A wonderful morning, sitting in a circle around the room, one by one we went through our stockings.  We took turns around the circle and you had to observe as each one pulled something out of their stocking, laughing till our sides hurt.  It was always something fun, a joke, a game, something useful or sometimes a tiny box so small it might have been lost under the tree with the big boxes, holding a lovely piece of jewelry.  Sometimes it was so large it had to stand on the floor  under the stocking.  Cost was the defining thing here – usually stocking stuffers were cheap, but fun! 

Note:   DEER WITH CANDLE
bottom right

One time my brother-in-law gave me a piece of wire sculpture shaped like a deer with a candle, almost three feet tall!  It fit the requirements –  he found it on sale, so it was “cheap,” it was fun, and he thought I would like it.  I did and it resides in a place of honor in my living room until this day.  Our stocking stuffers became such a hit that they almost took precedence over the “real” gifts, tucked under the tree.  They finally  would not fit into the stockings at all, so we had to resort to placing a basket, a box, or something large underneath  each stocking to hold the overflow!  They finally evolved their own name – stuffin stockers.  We still call them that today.

My sister Billie and I were married the same year, she in February, and me in October.  So that year we both celebrated Christmas with new husbands.  These two husbands both came from familes where there was not much made of Christmas day in the home.  My husband’s mother and step-father got up on Christmas day, they all exchanged one gift with each other, and then went off to his big family’s home up country to hunt.  My sister’s husband’s family got up on Christmas day and took off on a trip to Florida – every year – not much going on at that home.   

I can see them now, their first Christmas with the Haywoods, Harvey and Jan both sitting on the piano bench watching the  "theater"  taking place before them with their eyes wide open and their mouths

dropping!  There was “the spectacle of the stockings,” the never-ending parade of gifts from under the tree passed out by My Dad Bill (you would have met him before,) {the job later was passed to my niece Cathy in her little red elf’s hat,} and then the banquet which followed all that.  Neither one of those men had ever experienced anything like that in their whole lives.  Talk about   shock and awe!!

We got up and had coffee and finger foods while we explored our stockings.  Then while everyone “played” with whatever they had, the women adjourned to the kitchen to get the food started.  When everything was ready, the turkey came out of the oven (it had been cooking from early morning) and

Billie working hard

Dinner is Ready!

the dressing was put in, the broccoli and sweet potatoes awaiting their turn. The gravy was made, the collards heated up, and wonderful smells began to drift through the house.  The ladies returned to the group, and we began in earnest opening the “real” gifts.  This also went one at a time around the circle so that everyone could see what everyone else got – with descriptions and explanations!.  This always provoked much laughing and joking (read: ridicule!)

Hiding from the chaos

Doggies love Christmas too!

Absolute Chaos-we LOVE it

And then the dinner!  The dinner menu was set in stone and was NEVER changed.  We wanted what we wanted, and we didn’t want any “new-fangled” greenbean casserole, or any current experimental “fad” de jour.  Our menu was tried and trusted.  It had been that way for as long as we could remember.  It would stay that way, and it has persevered even until this very day.  There would be turkey, of course, with tons and tons of gravy to go on the Cornbread-Sage dressing (a recipe we know is over 100 years old – never changed,) candied sweet potatoes, collards, perhaps broccoli with cheese sauce, cranberry sauce (no lemon or orange was added so that the true taste of the berries shown brightly,) fruit salad (ambrosia) always cut up by My Dad Bill until it was finally taken over in later years by Billie’s husband, Jan.  Then there were the deserts: an assortment of cookies, a pecan pie, a variety of cakes, Orange Cake, Applesauce Cake, Chocolate layer cake, Coconut cake.  These were allowed to be changed, alternated.

Our dressing recipe went back as far as anyone could remember.  It came from my grandmother Blanche Arant Parker, Ruth’s mother.  She had a German background on one side, and a Welsh one on the other.  As I think about it, it  could have come down from the English Parker side!  So we don’t know which one developed the Cornbread-Sage dressing recipe.  It was different from most in that it was made from 4 kinds of bread – primarily cornbread, but also biscuits, saltine crackers, and some loaf bread.  It had onion, green pepper, celery, and pimentos.  It had two eggs beaten with some of the broth used to moisten it.  It then had lots of broth, a lot of sage, salt and pepper, and two chopped boiled eggs.     Nobody touches this recipe!  

(If you are interested,  you can find this recipe on the INFO page,  see tab at top.)

Aaron 2013

Times have passed.  Those are ghost memories of a time gone by.  Mama is gone,  Daddy is gone.  The two young husbands are now gone.  There is no one to remember those Christmases except my sister and me.  Those memories are now overshadowed by memories of Christmases  present.  Our once large circle has reduced to only five of us – my sister and myself, her daughter Cathy and husband Wally, and their son Aaron (who now passes out the gifts, but, being a   teenager,  refuses to wear the elf  hat!)  
Yes, we do still have the little  red elf hat!

Cathy and Wally

We have all agreed on new rules:  The stocking stuffers have been restricted to only 1 or 2 each to each person.  (My sister and I, with memories in our heads of Christmases past find it hard to abide by this rule, so we sneak more in with no names on them of who they are from!  It’s our little revolt!)  Gifts under the tree are restricted 

Billie and Me

also to one big and possibly two little ones.  I tend to break this rule also because I do a lot of crafting, making jewelry, etc.  So I slip them in under the premise that  they don’t count, they didn’t cost anything! 
                                                              I made them!     

I know all the excuses:  things cost so much today, money is always short (Heaven knows I know all about that one!)  everyone buys what they want when they want it (ergo:  they already have everything!)  It all makes sense.  I understand the logic.

But Ruth wouldn’t have understood.  And you would have   never  held her down!  She would have had her magnificent Christmas. 

I’m with Ruth !       If only in my head 
  (full of Ghost Memories of Christmases Past)

Remember

Memories of Christmases Past

and

Merry Christmas